


Doppelganger

by draculard



Category: Dead Ringers (1988)
Genre: Dominant Beverly Mantle, Exploring Each Other's Bodies, Extreme Underage, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mutual Masturbation, Power Dynamics, Sexual Tension, Sibling Incest, Somnophilia, Submissive Elliot Mantle, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:15:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25563451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: “You believe in doppelgangers?” Bev asks, half-smiling. Ellie’s eyes flicker down to his lips; he echoes the smile without seeming to even realize.“I believe in them,” he says. “I just don’t know what they mean.”
Relationships: Beverly Mantle/Elliot Mantle
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Doppelganger

Bev is the one on the right. It’s easier to tell them apart than you think; he wears glasses, whereas Ellie pretends not to need them, and he’s a few millimeters shorter than his brother. You may also notice — if their hair is styled — that Bev’s is parted in a soft swoop, Ellie’s gelled sharply to the side. A small difference, certainly, but it’s there if you care to notice.

Other differences have been noticed before. Their mother claimed that Bev’s the shy one. Others who have known them as adults say you can tell that Ellie’s the “dominant” twin.

These differences are less concrete. They come from outsiders; they cannot be confirmed, except by the twins themselves.

And they aren’t talking.

* * *

The first time Bev wakes with an erection, he’s eleven years old and Ellie is sleeping, warm and soft, beside him. Squinting — his eyes bleary from sleep and because his glasses are out of reach — Bev lifts the coverlet off himself and looks down. He can feel his penis, small but hard in his pajama pants. He can see the little tent it makes in the fabric. 

He lets the blanket fall back down again. Beneath it, he rolls on his side, sliding his arm around Ellie’s waist. He presses himself against Ellie’s hip in the process, notes with scientific clinicism how good the pressure feels against his erection — and then his searching hand finds Ellie’s cock, the same size as his and just as hard.

Bev lies there a moment, absolutely silent beneath the blankets, his hand wrapped around Ellie’s cock but separated by a layer of fabric. He can feel Ellie’s breathing, even and peaceful — blissfully unaware that they’ve both had their first erections the same day.

It’s still dark out — and Bev is halfway back to sleep — when Ellie’s breathing shifts. He goes still a moment and Bev knows he’s awake, knows he’s processing two new experiences at once — the hardness of his cock, the fingers wrapped around him. Minutely, Ellie’s hips shift, his cock twitching against Bev’s hand.

He freezes again. Slowly — neither of them breathing — Ellie turns to face his brother. Their knees bump together, their noses almost touching. They stare at each other, eyes hooded from sleep, faces almost expressionless.

Tentatively — almost shyly — Ellie reaches between them, presses his hand between Bev’s legs, feels the corresponding hardness there. A twin for his own.

Their lips twitch into matching smiles.

* * *

As adults, there are two beds in their apartment. One is slept in; the other stays empty. On nights when Ellie brings a girl home, it doesn’t even occur to Bev to sleep in the extra bed. He sleeps on the futon in the den, as close to their bedroom as he can get.

They both know they’re not supposed to. Some of their classmates growing up shared beds with their siblings, but not past the age of thirteen. For Bev and Ellie, it’s almost impossible to imagine a night without whispering together for hours, without laughing together, elbows bumping as they speak in the dark.

When they were kids, Ellie said they shared a bed because Bev had nightmares on his own. Perhaps this was true; Bev can’t remember. As adults, they don’t discuss it much — but when Bev doesn’t come to bed on time, Ellie comes to him, joins him in the study, smokes a cigarette in his pajamas and perches on the edge of Bev’s chair, complaining until they both can go to bed. It’s Ellie who wraps himself around Bev at night, burying his face in his brother’s chest or slinging an arm around Bev’s waist, begging to be held.

They don’t talk about it, but there’s a reason they share women the way they do. It feels wrong to touch somebody who’s never touched Ellie, just like it always feels wrong — subtly wrong, in a way Bev can’t explain — to feel a woman’s hand on his waist at night. He wakes sometimes, heart racing, and thinks: _These fingers are wrong. This hand is too small. Who’s touching me?_

And then he remembers who’s with him — and who’s not — and he settles back into bed. But it’s always difficult to get back to sleep.

* * *

“Watch,” Ellie says.

They’re twelve years old. They sit in the attic on a cool spring day, each of them perched on mismatched, decaying furniture near their budding gynecology station. Ellie’s legs are spread awkwardly, the tips of his sneakers barely touching the ground. He has his back to the attic’s only window, sunlight catching on his hair as he unzips his trousers.

He’s already half-hard when he pulls out his cock. Bev watches closely, adjusting his glasses. He crosses his legs and leans forward, hands clasped on the edge of his seat. Ellie’s eyes slide half-closed, his lips wet and slightly parted, as he wraps his fingers around his cock.

“It’s quite pink,” Bev comments, his eyes on the small head of Ellie’s cock. “It reminds me of a rosebud.”

Ellie laughs, a breathless and almost unidentifiable sound.

“No pubic hair yet, either,” Bev adds. He sits back and uncrosses his legs, then crosses them again, trying to look and sound neutral so Ellie doesn’t notice that he’s hard now, too. The inseam of his corduroy trousers cuts into his cock, providing half-painful, half-pleasant friction as he watches. Ellie’s fingers tighten — squeeze — and move up and down, slipping over the head of his cock and then back down again. 

Squirming, Bev asks, “Does it feel good?” He sounds breathless now, too, just like Ellie.

“Yes,” Ellie says. “You should try it.” Then, when Bev hesitates, “I won’t watch.”

But this just makes Bev hesitate more.

“I want you to watch,” he says.

* * *

He sees how suave Ellie is around other people — their colleagues and peers, their patients, their friends. And especially the girls they share. Ellie, outside of their apartment, isn’t just confident; he’s charming, he’s poised. Seductive. He always knows just what to say, just when to touch a woman’s waist — and how lightly — and where to move his hand after that.

Inside their apartment, he comes silently to Bev’s study while he works. He peers over Bev’s shoulder at the paper they’re writing, and his arm just barely brushes Bev’s. After a moment — too carefully to seem casual about it — Ellie rests his arm on the back of Bev’s chair, around Bev’s shoulders.

He blushes when Bev turns and looks at him. He averts his eyes, pretends to read the paper. 

He’s afraid to ask. 

* * *

“Watch,” Ellie says.

He turns the mirror so that it faces Bev; he examines his reflection a moment, then his eyes shift to Ellie and he sees the same face staring back at him again, just subtly different. 

“They say Abraham Lincoln saw his mirror image standing in the doorway,” Ellie murmurs, eyes on the glass. “Just days before he died. John Donne saw his wife’s _doppelganger_ , allegedly, the same night she lost her child to stillbirth.”

Bev looks back to his reflection. He stares himself directly in the eyes; then his gaze drops down to his Adam’s apple, to the collar buttoned up to his neck.

“In Egyptian mythology,” Ellie continues, “look-alikes took the form of a _ka_ , or a spirit-double, with the same exact memories as the original. And in Norse legends, the _vardoger_ performs a person’s actions in advance. You might see yourself performing a difficult surgery, for instance, months before it happens in real life.”

Bev’s still looking at the mirror when Ellie appears to lose interest. He leans over their work table, eyes on the sharp, stainless steel tools they designed themselves, but simultaneously far away. He touches a scalpel absently, his fingers brushing over the handle first, then the blade. Bev watches it all in the mirror, then turns and faces Ellie entirely just as Ellie pulls away from the tools and gingerly touches his own abdomen, just below the rib cage on his left side.

“You believe in doppelgangers?” Bev asks, half-smiling. Ellie’s eyes flicker down to his lips; he echoes the smile without seeming to even realize.

“I believe in them,” he says. “I just don’t know what they mean.”

* * *

In bed, when Ellie is sleeping, Bev turns and looks at him, at the hard and narrow planes of Ellie’s chest and hips, at the sharp edge of his jaw. At night, lying down like this — with their hair soft and washed free of product, with Bev’s glasses folded on the table nearby — it’s impossible to tell them apart.

He slips his hand beneath the covers, runs his fingers over Ellie’s nipple. He presses his lips — his tongue — his teeth against the pulse point jumping on Ellie’s neck. He can’t tell when exactly Ellie wakes; he only knows that Ellie’s eyes stay closed, his lips twitching as he tries not to react, tries to feign sleep.

When Bev’s fingers slip lower and find Ellie’s cock, Ellie whimpers. His hips shift; his legs spread. He keeps his eyes closed.

“Ellie?” Bev breathes, whispering the words against the bare skin on Ellie’s stomach where his shirt has ridden up. “Are you awake?”

No answer. He can see Ellie’s eyes squeezed closed, his lips a trembling line, the column of his throat shivering as he tries not to make another sound.

“You can be awake,” Bev says gently, almost inaudibly. “It’s okay.”

He buries his nose in Ellie’s navel, inhales his own scent on Ellie’s skin. His fingers catch in Ellie’s waistband; his breath ghosts over Ellie’s cock.

“You can watch,” Bev whispers.

And Ellie does.


End file.
